How to Determine the Keyword Selection for Your Site

Making a website attractive to search engines is a key factor for its success. One of the key ways in which to rank well with search engines is by optimizing the visible keywords on the pages. But in order to be successful in your keyword strategy campaign, you should use the following two steps.

Keyword Selection
You will need to determine what your pages are offering and also determine which words that your potential visitors might use in order to search for the pages of your site. You then need to create keywords which are based on those words. For the full optimization of keywords on your site you should use between 3 to 5 keywords on the appropriate pages. It is vital that you start using them from the top left and then down. Many times you will find that this will be the first 200 words on each page of your site which will include the title tag, headings, abstract etc. So the closer to the top left of your page the keywords are placed then the more weight they will be given by Google. Often, visitors will view your site in the same way that the search engine spider’s do, so emphasizing your keywords from the top left and down is a good way to design a site. However, if your pages are already built, you may be thinking it is too late to select your keywords. But it’s not. It does not matter if you choose your keywords before or after the site has gone live (although it is better to do it before, as then you will not need to rewrite the text on the pages). But if it is live, then you may have the keywords, but they may not be the right ones. Yet they could be and you have not fully utilized their optimization value. So, if you wish, by using a thorough keyword selection process, you can make sure that they keywords you are using are optimized to their fullest extent.
Also, another issue where keyword selection is concerned is you need to determine whether the keyword is too popular or competitive. So if you find sites that are already competing for high rankings using particular keywords, then you may need to select more specific keywords instead. This can also be said for keywords which have several different meanings as well. Therefore it is important that you look how users will search for your pages, and which specific questions the content of your pages actually answers. So whenever possible, refine the keywords that you use in order to answer these questions. But whenever you are refining your keywords, it is important that you keep in mind that a large portion of searches carried out on the net contain three words or more. So when people are searching for answers on the internet, they will often phrase their search term as a question. Therefore many people will not use search words that describe the solution to a question. So in order to optimize your pages to their full extent, it is best if you think like the person who is searching.

Check out the Competition
This is a great way of getting ideas, and you do this by carrying out a search using keywords that you already know, and that you would like to target. Then click through the top sites that come up as a result of this search. Then once on the site, view their source HTML code and view the keywords that they have in their Meta tags. But it is important that you remember to use those keywords which relate to your site or page. It is easy to view a sites HTML code, all you do is click on the “View” button at the top of your web browser page and then select “Source” or “Page Source”. By developing a list of keyword phrases, you should be able to optimize each page of your site for the search engines.

Next: What is Search Engine Friendly Content

White Hat SEO

There are 8 main components which determine your ranking on search engines:

1. Site Quality and Content
Create useful and comprehensive content that's related to your market to keep your visitors there. Adding keyword-rich text that makes sense and serves the concept of the web page improves your ranking and keeps your visitors interested. The more text, the better for search engine spiders when they index a website, it is strongly recommended that your homepage has at least 200-300 “visible” words. Moreover, the search engine spiders crawl especially the first 20 words of your website so try to keep an eye on them and make them really relevant to what your site is about. In addition, valuable, dense and regularly updated content is one of the most important items you need for your website because  visitors who stay longer while visiting a website help measure the popularity of the site in the search engines. Therefore try to put at your homepage such elements, content of which you will change regularly, e. g. news, events, recent articles etc.

2. Site Title
It is the most powerful SEO technique you have, so use it creatively! When search engine results are displayed the title is the first thing people see. Thus each page should have a different which will be generally the first sentence on at page. The Description Meta tag is also fairly important. Your  description should also have 2 or 3 of your keyword phrases at the beginning as so should your first sentence. Just like the

3. Meta Tags
Although many people incorrectly rely on them when performing SEO, META tags have decreased in importance recently, but are still worth using for clarity and search results. Their initial purpose was to help search engines find out important information about your page that they might have had difficulty determining otherwise. The Keyword tag is now the least important but is still used by some engines. As you never know when the rules of the search engines will change, or a new engine will want them, so take the time to include these tags in all your web pages. We recommend you do not overdo it with meta tags as well; your Keyword Meta should not exceed 1024 characters including spaces. If your site especially interesting for a specific geographic location be sure to include the actual location in your keyword meta. When performing SEO, you should always use the same keywords which also appear in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description etc. Any keyword phrases which are used in your meta tags only, will not have enough prominence to help your listings for that phrase.

4. Good Navigation
Having good navigation is important to the indexing of your web pages. There is nothing worse than arriving at a website and having difficulty understanding where to go for the
information you are seeking. Have easy to use, clearly marked navigation so your visitors click through instead of click-away in frustration.

5. Right Keywords
Use your keywords both low and high on the web page, keywords should be in the first sentence and in the last one. Keep in mind that for the target audience to find a site on the
search engines, the page must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases the target audience is typing into search queries. The first step before starting your SEO (and PPC campaigns as well) is to make the best keywords list possible. It is a fundamental step that will have a strong impact on your campaign success. Avoid expensive general keywords: you will certainly get a high rate of impressions, but not necessarily high conversion sales. Focus on specific key phrases that will get more highly targeted people to your site.

I would advise you to apply the following methodology to choose the right words:
1) Organize a brainstorming with your co-workers, business partners, friends and relatives to find keywords relevant to your business. Focus on the needs of your target audience,
what they would type in when looking for your products.
2) Try to make a list of 100 keywords minimum. Providing that you barely reach this goal, do use search term suggestion tool (such as www.inventory.overture.com or
www.wordtracker.info). Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) also comes with a keyword suggestion tool, available to Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers only.
3) Don’t forget dashes, apostrophes, spelling variations, plural versions and paste tense. Your potential customers will not search a keyword in the same way. For instance:
website, web site, web-site.
4) Check out your competitors’ webpages for ideas. View the source HTML code and take a look at keywords in their meta tags. They could be a good tip for yours!
5) When you are combining your SEO with PPC advertising campaigns, it is very helpful to use tracking results from Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing to revalue your
keyword list. Try to put emphasis on those which gain the highest number of clicks in your PPC campaigns.

6. Site Popularity
As determined by the number, quality and type of linked pages, most search engines don't even consider web sites if there is not at least one or two links pointing to the web
site. Links from other popular websites back to your website are one way of increasing your site's popularity. Finding websites with similar content (but not your competitors) and high link popularity, then trading links to be posted on each site, is one way of increasing your site popularity.

7. In-site Cross Linking
Get all of your web pages indexed by the search engines by implementing your sitemap. Your web pages should be no more than three clicks away from the home page. On every page you
should link back to your home page and your main service(s) or product(s).

8. Web Site Design
This is also important, if you want to get indexed! Text content should outweigh the HTML content. The pages should validate and be usable in all of today's leading edge browsers. Stay away from Frames, Flash, Javascript, Image Maps, and Dynamic URLs, search engines dislike them all a lot. One prudent tool to use is the “alt” attribute of pictures on your site. You simply describe the pictures and this description can include your keywords. It is essential not to put more than 2-3 keywords to one picture.

How to combine SEO with your PPC campaign

Getting a top 5 search ranking in Google, Yahoo! and recently in MSN.com as well is the key factor to advertise your product on-line. Optimizing your website will generate more traffic than all of your other Internet Marketing efforts combined. By simply getting traffic coming to your website, you have got more chance of generating more sales.... The best way to have a good position on Internet search engines is to combine your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) with pay per click advertising campaigns (Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or Microsoft AdCenter for MSN.com).
These two most successful techniques for getting ranked high can positively influence each other and implementing them both you will get excellent traffic results. Read these few pages and you will learn all about SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns before you waste a lot of money on a campaign that doesn't work. This guide provides essential overview of SEO and it will help you to launch your first on-line advertising campaigns with Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) or Microsoft AdCenter.


Search Engine Optimization: How to Get a Good Position on the Internet?

So you want your website to be on the first page of every Search Engine? You can influence your search engine visibility by yourself and it is much easier than you expected. The best way to have a good position on Internet search engines is to combine your advertising campaigns (Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or Microsoft AdCenter) with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Thus, by implementing a good SEO strategy, you can significantly increase both the number and quality of visitors. SEO means that your Web site is "optimised" for search engine results, meaning that, ideally, your Web site will come up as one of the first 10 sites when people search for keywords pertinent to your business. This is essential to your web site traffic which can then lead to further sales generation. For example 3R Sales and Marketing managed to dominate the Google listings for more than one month and they did it themselves, without any external help. Here you can read more about how they did it: Does SEO Marketing Really Boost Sales?

In general, SEO has two main areas:
1. changes to a site's code (referred to as "on-page factors")
2. getting links from other sites (referred to as "off-page factors").

Although SEO is a simple and relatively easy-to-use way of improving your website ranking, which helps your customers find your website easier, there is also possibility of abuse. This can at the end of the day lead to being excluded from the search engines listings. Therefore it is crucial to know the difference between techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design (so called “White Hat” SEO) and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of (referred to as “Black Hat” SEO or spamdexing). Another interesting fact to know is that search engines change their search criteria daily. There are usually very subtle changes an average web site owner does not have to track. Their purpose is to prevent spamdexing or at least make it as difficult as possible. Now let’s take a look at the most common techniques of search engine optimisation.

Believe it or not, SEO is all about common sense and simplicity. The purpose of search engine is to make a website as search engine friendly as possible. It’s really not that difficult. Basic SEO doesn’t require specialized knowledge of algorithms, programming and taxonomy but it does require a basic understanding of how search engines work.
Create good content and do your homework when hiring for services. Using affordable search engine marketing services will add to your audience exposure on the web. In this way you will always be ahead of the game and hopefully, ahead of your competitors.